In recent weeks we have been listening to
the fast-moving first chapter from Mark’s gospel:
we heard the end of it last week.
Today we have the missing piece from that chapter.
Just before today’s passage we had
Jesus…was baptised in the Jordan by John….
and
… he saw the Spirit…descending on him.
Immediately, Mark goes on, as we just heard:
The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness.
After the wilderness, Mark tells us Jesus
proclaimed the Good News from God
…he started his public ministry.
We, the baptised, are called to draw closer and closer to Jesus,
to be his presence in the world today.
Each Lent we respond to the Spirit given to us in Baptism,
following Jesus into the wilderness,
to renew ourselves to proclaim the Good News from God.
What makes a wilderness? What does it suggest to you?
Living meagrely?
Solitude?
Space?
Uncertainty?
Vulnerability?
It is important to reflect on this because
the question at the heart of responding to today’s gospel is:
What ‘wilderness’ is the Spirit driving us to, today, this Lent?
Of course we follow our Lenten disciplines –
we pray
(maybe a weekday Mass, or Friday Stations of the cross, or Adoration);
we fast
(maybe from breakfast, or coffee, or alcohol, or chocolate, or television, or facebook)
we give alms
(and it is CAFOD Family Fast day on Friday) –
but the ‘wilderness’ question goes deeper.
It is not about doing something:
a wilderness is a place to be,
a place where we are vulnerable and alone,
a place of doubts and difficulties,
a place where we are empty before God, and know it.
Then, when the time is right, God touches us:
or as the gospel puts it, angels look after us.
So, let us all ask the Holy Spirit, who descended on us at our Baptism:
show me my wilderness for this Lent, and drive me into it.